UC-NRLF 


B   2    7T3    Tfla 


'^^.  / 


The  Arms  of  Benedict  XV 

By 
Pierre  de  Chaignon  La  Hose 


The  Arms  of  Benedict  XV 


An  Introduction  to  the  Study  of 

PAPAL  ARMORIALS 


BY 


PIERRE  DE  CHAIGNON  LA  ROSE 


http://www.archive.org/details/armsofbenedictxvOOphilrich 


r\  |M 


jV3 


THE  ARMS  OF  BENEDICT  XV. 


An  Introduction  to  the  Study  of  Papal  Armorials. 


I. 

THE  arms  of  His  Holiness  Pope  Benedict  XV  may  be 
"blazoned"  (i.  e.  described  in  the  technical  language 
of  heraldry)  as  follows:  Party  per  fess,  two  coats:  A,  Or,  a 
demi-eagle  displayed  issuant  sable,  langued  gules ;  B,  Party 
per  bend  azure  and  or,  a  church,  the  tower  at  sinister,  argent, 
essoree  gules,  the  tower-cross  of  the  second.  This  is  to  say, 
in  colloquial  terms,  that  the  shield  is  divided  horizontally  into 
two  equal  compartments,  each  containing  an  independent  her- 
aldic composition.  The  top  compartment  shows  on  a  gold 
**  field  "  or  background  the  upper  half  of  a  black  eagle  with 
red  tongue,  his  wings  outspread  ("  issuant  "  meaning  that  the 
body  springs  from  the  partition  line).  This  composition  is, 
as  will  be  explained  later,  a  modified  version  of  the  old  arms 
of  the  Holy  Roman  Empire.  In  the  bottom  compartment  the 
field  is  divided  diagonally  into  two  theoretically  equal  parts, 
the  upper  triangle  being  of  blue,  the  lower  of  gold ;  on  this 
compound  background  is  shown  a  red-roofed,  silver  church, 
the  tower,  topped  with  a  gold  cross,  rising  at  "  sinister  ",  the 
left  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  hearer  of  the  shield.  This« 
second  composition  is  the  heraldic  cognizance  peculiar  to  the 
della  Chiesa  family,  the  design  in  the  upper  compartment 
being  common  to  many  Italian  houses — for  reasons  to  be 
shown. 

Thanks  to  the  personal  kindness  of  the  Chancellor  of  the 
Archdiocese  of  Boston,  who  procured  for  me  from  Rome  col- 
ored prints  of  His  Holiness's  arms  both  as  Archbishop  and  as 
Pope,  I  have  been  able  to  study  these  arms  from  what  may  be 

[Reprinted,  with  permission,  from  The  Ecclesiastical  Review,  August 
and  September,  1915.    The  Dolphin  Press,  Philadelphia.] 

173 


2  THE  ARMS  OF  BENEDICT  XV, 

regarded  an  official  version,  as  the  print  of  the  papal  "achieve- 
ment" is  the  embossed  heading  of  the  Pontiff's  personal  writ- 


ing-paper. The  arms,  although  on  a  very  small  scale,  are 
gilded  and  colored  apparently  with  meticulous  care,  and  the 
"  charges  "  and  "  tinctures  "  are  exactly  those  named  in  the 


THE  ARMS  OF  BENEDICT  XV.  , 

above  blazon.  Artificers  may  well  note  a  few  minor  details : 
the  beak  of  the  eagle  is  black  like  the  rest  of  his  body,  but 
the  tongue,  tiny  as  it  is  in  the  pontifical  print,  is  carefully  in- 
dicated as  red,  just  as  the  minute  cross  on  the  church-tower  is 
shown  of  gold;  and  although  silver  leaf  is  used  elsewhere  on 
the  achievement,  both  keys  are  gilded.  A  question  which 
may  puzzle  craftsmen  when  rendering  these  arms  on  a  large 
scale,  is  what  color  may  be  given  to  the  spaces  of  the  window 
and  door  openings  of  the  church.  On  the  print  described 
these  small  apertures  are  brushed  in  with  an  indeterminate, 
neutral  grey,  which  may  be  regarded  as  a  lower  tone,  in 
shadow,  of  the  argent  of  the  church  itself.  There  is,  gener- 
ally, no  heraldic  necessity  for  these  apertures,  in  castles, 
towers,  etc.,  to  be  of  a  different  tincture  from  that  of  the  main 
fabric.  However,  when  the  roof  is  blazoned  of  a  different 
tincture,  the  openings  often  follow  suit.  So  in  this  case,  on  a 
large  drawing,  to  show  these  openings  in  color  instead  of 
metal,  would  not  be  a  serious  violation  of  heraldic  propriety. 

The  heraldry  itself  is  extremely  interesting,  and,  like  all 
good  heraldry,  it  is  also  extremely  simple.  Undoubtedly  many 
sentimental  effusions  will  be  written  about  it  by  the  school  of 
amateurs  who  have  never  got  beyond  what  Planche  calls  the 
"  astrology  of  heraldry ",  and  many  complications  will  be 
read  into  it,  complications  which  exist  chiefly  in  the  mind  of 
the  beholder.  But  it  is  strikingly  possible,  by  analyzing  this 
shield  and  comparing  it  with  analogous  arms  of  other  sov- 
ereign pontiffs,  to  show  from  it  the  essentially  practical 
nature  of  heraldry,  its  simple  reasonableness,  before  the  scio- 
listic  vaporings  of  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  century  her- 
aldic "  astrologers  "  befogged  the  subject  with  a  vast  cloud 
of  inanity.  And  fortunately  these  arms  are  so  clear  that, 
even  in  the  absence  of  any  purely  genealogical  data,  one  can 
analyze  them,  heraldically,  through  their  own  internal  evi- 
dence, 

In  Figure  A  I  have  drawn  what,  from  this  internal  evi- 
dence, a  herald  would  assume  to  have  been  the  original  arms 
of  the  family :  simply  a  church,  a  chiesa,  on  a  somewhat  pecu- 
liarly parti-colored  field — allusive,  or  "  canting  "  arms,  armes 
parlantes  as  the  heralds  say,  where  the  composition  expresses 
or  alludes  to  the  name  of  the  bearer.    That  the  original  funCr- 


4  THE  ARMS  OF  BENEDICT  XV. 

tion  of  a  coat-of-arms  was  mere  identification  is  now,  unhap- 
pily, too  often  ignored.  The  late  J.  R.  Planche,  Somerset 
Herald,  in  his  invaluable  little  book.  The  Pursuivant  of  Arms, 
1 85 1,  writes:  "  It  is  scarcely  possible  to  find  an  ancient  coat 
that  was  not  originally  canting  or  allusive  (that  is  to  say,  al- 
luding to  the  name,  estate,  or  profession  of  the  bearer),  ex- 
cepting, of  course,  those  displaying  simply  the  honorable  ordi- 
naries, which,  as  I  have  already  stated,  took  their  rise  from 
the  ornamental  strengthenings  of  the  shield,  and  even  these 
were  occasionally  so."  And  Father  Marc  Gilbert  de  Varennes 
in    Le   Roy    d'Armes,    1540    (I    use    Planche's    translation) 


Fig.  a 


observes:  "  Our  ancestors,  less  curious  and  more  simple  than 
we  are  at  present,  usually  took  care  in  the  composition  of  their 
arms  that  there  should  be  a  correspondence  between  their  name 
and  the  figures  with  which  they  emblazoned  their  shields : 
which  they  did  namely  to  this  end,  that  all  sorts  of  persons,  in- 
telligent or  ignorant,  citizens  or  countrymen,  should  recognize 
easily  and  without  further  inquiry,  to  whom  the  lands  or  the 
houses  belonged  wherever  they  found  them  as  soon  as  they 
had  cast  their  eyes  upon  the  escutcheon."  In  an  age  when 
heraldry  served  a  very  practical  purpose,  the  endless  romantic 
and  symbolical  complications  of  the  later  school  of  heraldic 
sciolists  would  have  seemed  nearly  as  grotesque  as  they  do  to 
modern  scholarship.  It  is  too  often  forgotten  that  the  simple 
canon  of  medieval  heraldic  usage,  evolved  from  a  practical 
military  necessity,  was  well-nigh  completed  nearly  three  hun- 
dred years  before  the  first  heraldic  romanticist  was  able  to 
burst  into  print. 

Let  us  consider  a  few  clearly  allusive  papal  coats.    The  very 
first  that  may  be  regarded  as  approximately  free  from  the 


THE  ARMS  OF  BENEDICT  XV.  C 

suspicion  of  being  either  apocryphal  or  "  retroactive  "  is  that 
of  Lucius  II,  1144-45,  His  shield  has  on  it  simply  a  ramping 
bear.  Now,  first,  for  a  little  "  astrology  "  on  the  subject, 
which  even  some  modern  minds  seem  always  to  crave  when 
anything  so  recondite  (!)  as  heraldry  is  involved.  We  will 
begin  at  random  with  Guillim :  ^  "  It  is  written  of  the  She-bear 
that  she  bringeth  forth  her  young  Ones  imperfect  and  de- 
formed like  a  lump  of  raw  Flesh  and  licks  it  till  it  comes  to 
Shape  and  Perfection.  The  She-bear  is  most  cruelly  inraged 
against  any  that  shall  hurt  her  Young,  or  despoil  her  of  them : 
As  the  Scripture  saith,  in  setting  forth  the  fierce  Anger  of  the 
Lord,  that  he  will  meet  his  Adversaries  as  a  Bear  robbed  of 
her  Whelps"  etc.  See  how  satisfactory  it  would  be  to  a  cer- 
tain type  of  mind  to  use  this  as  the  basis  for  a  serious  explana- 
tion of  the  real,  heraldic,  significance  of  Lucius  II's  coat.  One 
more  "  astrological  "  quotation,  from  Sylvanus  Morgan,^  will 
give  details  less  accidentally  germane  (note  especially  the 
logic  of  the  passage)  :  "  Next  to  the  Lyon  is  the  Ursa  minor, 
having  the  preheminence,  because  it  is  nearest  of  all  the  rest 
to  the  North  Pole;  it  is  called  Helice  minor,  by  reason  of  its 
small  Revolution;  or  rather  of  Elice,  a  town  in  Arcadia 
wherein  Calysto  the  Great  Bear  and  Mother  of  the  Less  was 
bred.  It  is  called  Cynosura,  because  this  Constellation,  though 
it  carry  the  name  of  a  Bear,  it  hath  the  tail  of  a  Dog;  and 
therefore  [sic]  Lyons  or  Bears,  being  in  Arms,  and  yet  not  of 
their  own  native  color  are  esteemed  Honourable,  because  the 
inward  qualities  of  the  mind,  are  denoted  by  the  outward  tinc- 
ture; and  an  Ass  cannot  be  a  Lyon,  though  it  hides  its  ears 
with  the  Lyon's  skin." — But  we  are  now  pretty  far  away  from 
Lucius  II's  bear,  whose  presence  on  that  Pontiff's  shield  can 
be  quite  reasonably  explained  to  all  but  heraldico-astrological 
votaries  by  the  fact  that  the  Pontiff's  family  name,  long  before 
he  became  Pope,  was  "Hunt",  in  Italian  Caccia  (Caccia- 
Memini),  that  Lucania  and  Umbria  at  that  period  were  still 
infested  with  bears,  and  that  the  bear-hunt,  caccia  d'orso,  was 
a  welcome  pastime  even  among  the  Roman  nobles. 

We  may  now  proceed  perhaps  more  freely  with  some  of 
the  more  obviously  allusive  charges  on  the  arms  of  subsequent 

"^  A  Display  of  Heraldrie,  1611.     Ed.  1724,  p.  190. 
2  The  Sphere  of  Gentry,  1661,  p.  90. 


6  THE  ARMS  OF  BENEDICT  XV. 

Pontiffs.  The  next  to  be  noted  is  the  sieve,  crivello,  of  Urban 
III,  1 185,  of  the  Crivelli  family.  Follows  shortly  the  perfect 
rebus  of  the  lion  holding  the  castle  of  Celestin  IV,  1241,  of 
the  house  of  Castiglioni,  which  has  furnished  a  series  of  Popes 
to  Pius  VIII,  1829.  The  arms  of  Benedict  XII,  1334,  of  the 
Novelli,  show  on  a  blue  field  a  small  blank  (argent)  escut- 
cheon indicative  of  a  novus  homo.  Innocent  VII,  1404, 
displays  an  irradiated  star  expressive  of  the  Miliorati.  John 
XXIII,  1410,  of  the  house  of  Cossa,  proclaims  his  name  with 
a  leg — coscia.  So  with  the  column  of  Martin  V  (Colonna)  ; 
the  oak-tree,  rovere,  of  Sixtus  IV  (della  Rovere)  ;  the  moun- 
tains of  Julius  III  (del  Monte)  ;  the  stag,  cervo,  of  Marcel- 
lus  II  (Cervini)  ;  the  pear-branch  of  Sixtus  V  (Peretti)  ; 
the  chestnut  of  Urban  VII  (Castagna)  ;  the  precipitous  moun- 
tain, chieggia,  of  Alexander  VII  (Chigi)  ;  the  high-riding 
stars  of  Clement  X  (Altieri)  ;  the  broth-  or  drinking-pot,  pig- 
natta,  of  Innocent  XII  (Pignatelli)  ;  the  hat  of  Gregory  XVI 
(Cappellari).  And  there  are  undoubtedly  others  that  could 
be  explained  by  this  early  fondness  for  the  perspicuous  or 
even  the  far-fetched  rebus.  No  one  familiar  with  the  temper 
of  simple  medieval  heraldry  is  surprised  at  the  bees  on  the 
shield  of  the  Barberini,  who,  passing  by  the  accurate  etymol- 
ogy of  their  patronymic,  displayed  these  little  barbed  insects 
as  a  sufficiently  clear  play  on  the  name. 

So  with  the  "  church  "  of  the  della  Chiesa  we  have  a  shield 
wholly  in  keeping  with  the  medieval  spirit  of  heraldry  which 
the  arms  of  so  many  of  Benedict  XV's  predecessors  so  clearly 
express.  And  it  is  in  this  same  spirit  that  some  of  our  Ameri- 
can hierarchy,  in  the  absence  of  inherited  insignia,  have  been 
content  with  simple  armes  parlantes,  notably  the  Bishop  of 
Saint  Cloud,  Monsignor  Busch,  with  his  rose-bush,  the  Bishop 
of  Corpus  Christi,  Monsignor  Nussbaum,  with  his  nut-tree, 
and  others. 

On  the  shield  of  the  Holy  Father  there  remains  to  be  con- 
sidered the  black  eagle  on  its  gold  field.  In  Figure  B  I  have 
drawn  the  form  in  which  I  believe  this  charge  first  appeared 
on  the  della  Chiesa  arms;  as  a  "chief  of  the  Empire"  (the 
"  chief  "  comprising  only  the  upper  third  of  the  shield) ,  to 
show  the  political  affiliations  of  the  family.  There  are  well- 
nigh  endless  examples  of  this  to  be  found  in  Italian  heraldry; 


THE  ARMS  OF  BENEDICT  XV.  j 

for  at  a  time  when  fierce  factional  strife  waged  between 
Guelphs  and  Ghibellines  it  was  not  only  sentimentally  im- 
portant but  often  highly  advisable  from  a  practical  standpoint 
to  show  on  one's  arms,  and  therefore  heraldically  to  indicate 
on  one's  property,  one's  political  party.  The  nobles  of  the 
Guelphic  or  Angevin  faction  placed  on  their  shields  a  blue 
chief  with  the  gold  fleurs-de-lis  and  the  red  "  label  "  of  the 
Angevin  Kings  of  Naples.  A  survival  of  this  Guelphic  politi- 
cal chief  appears  on  the  arms  of  Innocent  X  (Pamfili),  The 
Ghibelline  faction  displayed  on  a  chief  the  imperial  emblem 


Fig.  B 


of  the  Hohenstaufea,  and  we  have  this  chief  retained  on  the 
arms  of  Clement  III  (Scolari),  Paul  V  (Borghese),  Innocent 
XI  (Odescalchi),  and  Alexander  VIII  (Ottoboni).  These 
Ghibelline  chiefs  usually  show  the  whole  body  of  the  eagle, 
but  the  della  Chiesa  version,  that  of  only  the  upper  half  of 
the  eagle,  is  not  unique  in  Italian  heraldry  and  arises  un- 
doubtedly merely  from  a  desire  to  show  the  head  and  wings 
on  a  larger  and  therefore  a  more  perspicuous  scale  than  is 
possible  when  space  has  to  be  reserved  for  the  outspread  legs 
and  tail.  It  will  be  noted  that  the  della  Chiesa  version  shows 
but  a  single-headed  eagle;  but  on  the  coinage  of  Paul  V  and 
of  Innocent  XI  the  eagle  is  likewise  single-headed,  whereas 
that  on  the  coins  of  Alexander  VIII  is  double-headed.  For  a 
discussion  of  the  arms  of  the  Empire,  and  their  transition  from 
the  single  to  the  double-headed  bird,  I  refer  the  reader  to 
Heraldry  British  and  Foreign,  by  John  Woodward,  LL.D., 
Edinburgh,  1896.  That  the  Guelph- Ghibelline  quarrels  were 
fairly  synchronous  with  the  transitional  period  of  the  imperial 
heraldry  will  account  for  the  variations  in  the  several  chiefs 
cited.      Again,    the   eagle  on   the   della   Chiesa   chief   is   not 


8  THE  ARMS  OF  BENEDICT  XV. 

crowned,  while  those  on  the  other  papal  coats  are ;  but  this  is  a 
minor  variation,  again  not  unique  in  Italian  heraldry,  and 
does  not  affect  the  origin  or  the  significance  of  the  charge  in 
question. 

But,  it  may  be  objected,  the  eagle  of  the  Empire  on  Bene- 
dict XV's  coat  does  not  appear  on  a  chief,  occupying  merely 
the  upper  third  part  of  the  shield,  but  in  a  compartment  of 
equal  importance  with  that  occupied  by  the  church.  In  other 
words,  the  Pope's  shield  is  divided  "  per  fess  ",  or  horizontally 
into  two  equal  parts.  This  development  of  what  was  undoubt- 
edly originally  a  chief  will  perplex  no  one  familiar  with  the 
mutations  of  heraldic  designs,  in  the  course  of  centuries,  at 
the  hands  of  successive  draughtsmen.  Precisely  the  same 
thing  has  happened  on  some  of  the  papal  coinage  with  this 
very  "  chief  of  the  Empire  ",  notably  in  the  case  of  the  Otto- 
boni  arms.  On  some  few  of  Alexander  VIII's  coins  the  eagle 
occupies,  as  originally,  but  the  upper  third,  but  on  the  ma- 
jority of  them  it  fills  fully  half  of  the  shield  or  cartouche,  and 
the  same  variation  is  found  on  the  coins  of  Paul  V :  yet  careful 
heralds  have  always  blazoned  the  Ottoboni  and  the  Borghese 
arms  as  charged  with  a  chief  and  not  "  party  per  fess  ".  And 
I  should  be  inclined  so  to  blazon  the  della  Chiesa  arms  except 
for  the  fact  that  in  the  two  prints,  on  which  I  have  based  my 
study,  one  a  shield,  the  other  an  oval  cartouche,  the  "  politi- 
cal ",  imperial  compartment  fills  unmistakably  half  of  the 
total  field.  I  have  merely  to  record  it  as  I  have  found  it,  and 
to  explain  by  the  above  examples  how,  judging  from  many 
other  cases  also,  it  has  developed  to  its  present  proportions. 

Finally  as  for  the  colors  of  the  Pontiif's  arms.  Unfortu- 
nately I  cannot  tell  you  just  what  moral  attributes  the  blue 
and  gold  of  the  field  parted  per  bend,  etc.,  indicate.  In  my 
library  I  can  pick  out  one  author  who  will  gravely  declare 
that  the  blue  expresses  a  particular  virtue,  and  then  I  can 
readily  pick  out  another  who  with  equal  gravity  will  ascribe 
the  same  virtue  to  red,  etc.,  etc.  Of  course  amateurs  who  have 
access  only  to  a  very  limited  collection,  less  frequently  run 
foul  of  this  dilemma — often,  indeed,  do  not  suspect  its  exist- 
ence. A  student  of  the  history  of  heraldry  must  collect  these 
writers,  and  even  study  them,  just  as  a  student  of  the  history 
of  science  must  have  some  acquaintance  with  the  writings  of 


PAPAL  COINS   FROM    THE  VATICAN    COLLECTION 


THE  ARMS  OF  BENEDICT  XV.  g 

Paracelsus  and  others  less  worthy.     But  my  own  opinion  runs 
with  that  of  Planche,  who  as  Somerset  Herald  had  the  advan- 
tage of  being  an  official,  not  an  amateur  practitioner,  and  who, 
equipped  with  more  scholarship  than  the  general  run  of  her- 
aldic writers,  may  almost  be  called  the  father  of  modern  her- 
aldic archeological  research.     "  The  egregious  absurdity,"  he 
exclaims,®  "  of  considering  that  certain  tinctures  typified  the 
virtues  or  disposition  of  the  bearer,  requires  no  other  refuta- 
tion than  the  contradictory  assertions  of  the  pedantic  essayists 
themselves."     It  would  be  quite  in  the  vein  with  these  to  say 
that  the  silver  of  the  church  protected  by  the  red  roof  indi- 
cated,   through    the    essential    heraldic   significance   of   these 
tinctures,  the  spotless  purity  of  the  Faith,  testified  to  by  the 
blood  of  martyrs ;  and  if  I  had  written  this  in  the  sixteenth  or 
the  seventeenth  century  some  modern  heraldic  amateur  would 
very  likely  now  be  quoting  me  with  satisfaction.     I  can,  how- 
ever, only  point  out  that  the  tinctures  of  the  church  are  the 
most    natural    ones    imaginable,    as    the    Italian    countryside 
swarms  with  little  whitewashed  churches  with  red-tiled  roofs  ; 
and  if  you  should  set  one  on  a  hill  when  the  grass  was  burnt 
or  the  harvest  was  ripe  you  would  have  a  combination  of 
church,  yellow  hill,  and  blue  sky  which  the  papal  coat  reduces 
to  the  very  abstract  conventions  of  heraldic  pattern.     But  if 
we  should  take  seriously  my  "  sentimental  "   explanation  of 
the  tinctures  of  the  church,  what  then  should  we  say  of  an- 
other coat  of  the  Conti  della  Chiesa,  presumably  of  a  different 
branch   of  the  same  house   from  which   the  Pope  descends, 
blazoned  by  Rietstap,*  where  the  field  is  silver,  the  church 
red,  and  the  roof  blue?     Well,  the  more  we  study  this  color 
question,    not    from    the   sixteenth    and   seventeenth    century 
fantastical  writers  but  from  greatly  older  "  original  sources  " 
— the  earliest  rolls  of  arms,  etc.,  which  modern  archeological 
scholarship  is  rapidly  making  far  more  accessible  to  us  than 
they  were  to  these  essayists — the  more  we  shall  feel  inclined 
to  agree  with  Woodward,  one  of  the  most  distinguished  her- 
alds of  his  generation :  ^   "  The  old  armorists  covered  their 
ignorance  of  the  history  of  the  subject  on  which  they  wrote, 

8  Tke  Pursuivant  of  Arms.     Ed.  1873,  p.  45. 
^Armorial  General.     Ed.  2d,  n.  d.,  Vol.  I,  p.  418. 
«  Heraldry  British  and  Foreign.    Vol.  I,  p.  68. 


10  THE  ARMS  OF  BENEDICT  XV. 

and  filled  their  treatises,  by  assigning  to  each  metal  and  color 
special  attributes  according  to  their  combinations  with  others." 
(And,  remember,  it  is  difficult  to  find  any  two  of  them  who 
agree  in  their  ascriptions.)  "  Into  these  absurdities  we  need 
not  enter;  they  were  quite  incompatible  with  the  long  preva- 
lent system  of  differencing  the  coats  of  members  of  the  same 
family  by  change  of  tincture;  and  as  a  matter  of  fact  at  no 
time,  and  in  no  country,  were  the  moral  qualities  of  the  bearer 
indicated  by  the  tincture  or  charges  of  the  shield."  (The 
italics  are  mine.) 

Now  anyone  with  access  to  a  large  collection  of  heraldic 
"  astrology  "  can  flood  me  with  a  mass  of  quotations  to  the  op- 
posite eff'ect  (I  can  do  it  myself!),  and  the  layman  in  the  sub- 
ject will  either  believe  that  weight  of  numbers  is  sufficient 
refutation  or  will  abandon  the  subject  in  the  disgust  that  these 
elaborate  trivialities  often  inspire.  But  it  is  not  weight  of  num- 
bers which  counts,  but  scholarship.  And  if  there  is  any  value 
in  the  testimony  of  silence,  you  will  find  the  two  most  learned 
heralds  of  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries.  Father 
Menestrier  and  Camden,  Clarenceux  King  of  Arms,  serenely 
free  from  these  vagaries  concerning  color.  No  writer  of  im- 
portance during  the  past  fifty  years,  since  the  revival  of  her- 
aldic scholarship,  has  for  a  moment  entertained  them.  I  re- 
member some  years  ago  looking  over  a  book  of  the  owners' 
flags  in  the  New  York  Yacht  Club.  (Yacht  flags,  despite 
their  restricted  range,  have  astonishingly  much  in  common 
with  early  heraldry,  both  in  their  underlying  purpose  and  in 
the  means  by  which  it  is  attained.)  When  I  came  to  the  flag 
of  the  member  with  whom  I  was  sitting,  I  asked  him  why  he 
had  chosen  green  and  white.  "  Oh,  merely  because  I  particu- 
larly liked  the  colors — and,  besides,  they  were  the  colors  of 
my  old  college  club."  Just  so,  I  feel,  with  Father  de  Va- 
rennes,  that  it  is  absurd  to  attribute  to  our  fighting  forebears  a 
more  delicately  complicated  psychology  than  our  own.  May 
it  not  be  mere  common  sense  to  assume  that  the  first  armigerous 
della  Chiesa  chose  the  tinctures  he  did  because  he  "  particu- 
larly liked"  them?  Or  he  may  have  chosen  them,  as  is  in 
some  cases  historically  demonstrable,  simply  because  they 
-were  the  livery  colors  of  some  more  important  personage  to 
whom  he  was  in  some  way  attached.    And  a  cadet,  before  the 


THE  ARMS  OF  BENEDICT  XV.  i  j 

invention  of  the  comparatively  modern  "  brisures  "  or  "  dif- 
ferences "  of  small  added  charges  (labels,  mullets,  etc.), 
obliged  to  "  difference "  his  shield  from  that  of  his  senior 
kinsman,  had  the  choice  (and  the  same  practice  has  obtained 
in  Scottish  heraldry  up  to  comparatively  recent  times)  of 
changing  either  the  principal  charge  or  the  tinctures.  Not 
wishing  to  change  so  expressive  a  rebus  as  the  chiesa,  he  would 
certainly  change  the  tinctures,  without  this  alteration  at  all 
necessarily  involving  a  spiritual  variation  from  the  family 
type.  In  short,  considering  this  early  practice,  of  which  we 
now  have  endless  data,  when  one  theory  does  not  square  with 
common  sense  and  the  other  does,  we  have  two  possible  con- 
clusions :  first,  that  either  our  forebears  were  devoid  of  com- 
mon sense  or  heraldry  certainly  was;  second,  that  our  practi- 
cal theory  is  the  correct  one. 

One  final  point  in  regard  to  the  tinctures  of  the  Papal  arms. 
It  will  be  noted  that  much  of  the  silver  church  impinges  on 
the  gold  field  and  that  much  of  the  red  roof  impinges  on  the 
blue :  metal  on  metal  and  color  on  color.  "  False  heraldry !" 
will  at  once  exclaim  those  amateurs  whose  knowledge  is  lim- 
ited to  that  of  the  popular  heraldic  "  manuals  ".  But  these 
manuals  bear  the  same  relation  to  the  great  practice  of  her- 
aldry as  do  primers  to  the  highly  flexible  literature  of  a  lan- 
guage: they  may  be  sound  as  far  as  they  go,  but  they  do  not 
go  very  far.  It  is  a  commonplace  of  heraldry  that  when  the 
field  is  equally  compounded  of  color  and  metal,  the  charges 
may  be  either  of  metal  or  of  color;  also  that  the  accessories  of 
charges,  such  as  the  tongues  and  claws  of  animals,  the  coronets 
with  which  figures  are  often  crowned,  etc.,  etc.,  are  exempt 
from  this  elementary  rule.  To  give  illustrative  examples 
would  be  to  fill  a  volume.  There  is  therefore  no  false  her- 
aldry on  the  Papal  arms;  and  indeed  the  whole  series,  from 
Lucius  II  down,  has  been  singularly  free  from  this. 

II. 

In  view  of  the  fact  that  the  arms  of  His  Holiness  Pope 
Benedict  XV  will  presently  appear  in  many  American  churches 
and  other  buildings  under  ecclesiastical  control,  it  may  be  well 
that  artificers  in  stone,  fresco,  gleiss,  etc.,  and  the  clergy  and 


12  THE  ARMS  OF  BENEDICT  XV. 

architects  who  commission  these  craftsmen,  be  helped  to  un- 
derstand somewhat  more  clearly  than  at  present  seems  the 
case,  the  essentials  of  papal  heraldry  and  its  flexibility.  The 
popular  errors  in  connexion  with  this  subject  are  so  many  and 
so  deeply  rooted  that  I  have  space  to  discuss  but  a  few  of  them, 
and  only  those  which  seem  most  important  from  an  architect's 
point  of  view. 

First,  however,  it  may  be  useful  to  explain  in  part  how  these 
errors  have  generally  arisen,  a  matter  very  clear  to  the  stu- 
dent of  the  history  of  heraldry  but  one  well  nigh  of  hopeless 
confusion  to  the  uninitiate.  Woodward  ^  exclaims  with  some 
bitterness :  "  Manuals  of,  and  Introductions  to,  Heraldry  have 
been  sufficiently  abundant.  For  the  most  part  compilations 
from  their  predecessors,  and  showing  very  little  original  in- 
vestigation or  research,  the  cramhe  repetita  has  been  dished 
up  ad  nauseam,  but  more  advanced  treatises  .  .  .  dealing 
more  fully  with  particular  branches  of  the  subject  than  is  pos- 
sible in  a  general  work,  have  been  very  few  and  far  between." 
Since  the  Protestant  Reformation  English  heraldic  writers 
have  had  little  concern  with  Catholic  armory.  Indeed,  apart 
from  this  work  of  Woodward's,  now  hard  to  procure,  I  do  not 
know  of  a  single  book  in  English,  other  than  mere  lists  and 
studies  of  episcopal  blazons,  that  deals  exclusively  with  the 
confused  subject  of  ecclesiastical  heraldry.  And  Woodward's 
book,  the  work  of  an  Anglican  and  a  very  conscientious 
scholar,  unfortunately  bristles  with  inaccuracies  when  dis- 
tinctively Catholic  heraldry  is  involved.  More  accessible  to 
Americans  is  the  avowedly  cursory  article  on  ecclesiastical 
heraldry  in  the  Catholic  Encyclopedia,  by  Mr.  A.  C.  Fox- 
Davies.  The  author,  a  Protestant,  had  obviously  little  or  no 
access  to  Catholic  "  original  sources  ",  and  was  at  no  pains  to 
do  more  than  expound  Anglican  usage  and  rehash  Monsig- 
nors  Barbier  de  Montault  and  Battandier.  The  illustrations, 
signed  by  Mrs.  Fox-Davies  ("  C.  Helard"),  are  largely  lit- 
eral reproductions  from  drawings  by  Herr  Strohl,'  with  no 
credit  given.  This  article  is  a  wholly  regrettable  feature  of  a 
distinguished  publication. 

«  Ecclesiastical  Heraldry,  by  John  Woodward,  LL.D.     Edinburgh,  1899. 
"^  Heraldischer  Atlas,  von  H.  G.  Strohl.     Stuttgart,  1899. 


THE  ARMS  OF  BENEDICT  XV. 


13 


In  French  there  have  been  a  number  of  minor  writers  on 
ecclesiastical  heraldry,  but  it  is  advisable  to  take  most  of  these 
grano  cum  sails.  No  other  country,  I  think,  has  been  so  pro- 
lific of  amateur  heraldists  who,  innocent  for  the  most  part  of 
scholarship,  have  been  willing,  in  Woodward's  phrase,  to  dish 
up  the  crambe  repetita  of  their  predecessors  ad  nauseam. 
Often  the  titles  appended  to  these  authors'  names  will  impress 
the  unwary :  "  Membre  du  Conseil  Heraldique  de  France  "  is 
one  of  the  most  imposing  and  frequent.  It  has  a  reassuringly 
"  official  "  sound — until  one  learns  that  the  "  Conseil  Her- 
aldique ",  recently  defunct,  was  simply  a  voluntary  association 
of  amateurs  whose  enthusiasm,  judging  from  their  publica- 
tions, frequently  outran  their  scholarship,  and  whose  status 
had  nothing  whatever  "  official  "  about  it.  I  have  yet  to  find 
a  work  of  first-claiSs  original  research  emanating  from  this 
source.  Most  of  the  writers  go  back  to  Vulson  de  la  Colum- 
biere,^  and  then  embroider  one  upon  the  other.  Our  Anglican 
friends  have  a  pleasant  term  which  they  apply  when  one  or 
another  of  them  adds  to  his  service  some  hitherto  unknown  or 
unaccepted  bit  of  ceremonial  or  symbolism :  they  call  it  "fancy 
ritual  ".  Among  a  small  wing  of  the  "  High  Church  "  party 
each  tries  liturgically  to  be  "  more  Catholic  than  the  Pope  ", 
and  the  results  are  sometimes  astonishing.  Well,  with  us 
Liturgy  is  a  well-ordered  science;  but  in  heraldry,  because  of 
the  very  few  authoritative  decrees  on  the  subject,  we  have 
many  "  fancy  ritualists  ",  each,  seemingly,  feeling  in  honor 
bound  to  read  into  the  simple  forms  of  ecclesiastical  armorials 
more  pious  symbolism  than  his  predecessor,  and,  when  it  comes 
to  papal  armorials,  each  striving,  apparently,  to  be  in  his  ex- 
planations "  more  Catholic  than  the  Pope  ". 

I  wish  to  quote  a  certain  number  of  statements  from  these 
wholly  well-intentioned  "fancy  ritualists"  and  then  to  compare 
them  with  the  actual  official  heraldic  usage  of  the  Sovereign 
Pontiffs.  And  I  shall  in  most  instances  base  my  own  conclu- 
sions on  the  pontifical  coinage,  for  this  reason :  I  know  of  no 
other  continuous  series  of  contemporaneous  papal  heraldic 
"  sources  "  of  equal  authoritativeness  or  accessibility.  To  an 
heraldic    archeologist    an    armorial    seal    is    of    the    highest 

8  La  Science  Heroique,  par  Marc  Vulson  de  la  Columbiere.     Paris,  1644. 


H 


THE  ARMS  OF  BENEDICT  XV. 


evidential  value;  but  the  Popes  have  never  used  seals  bearing 
their  official  arms.  The  arms  on  papal  monuments  are  of  great 
weight  with  the  student,  but  the  evidence  of  these  is  not  always 
strictly  "  contemporaneous  ",  the  funeral  monuments  in  most 
cases  being  erected  after  the  decease  of  the  Pontiff,  and  the 
accuracy  of  the  heraldry  at  times  hinging  chiefly  on  data  sup- 
plied to  the  artificer  by  minor  officials.  But  the  papal  coin- 
age, armorial  since  John  XXIII,  1410,  furnishes  us  with  evi- 
dence in  each  case  necessarily  contemporaneous  and  necessarily 
authoritative.  To  question  the  evidential  validity  of  a  papal 
coin  issued  with  the  official  sanction  of  the  Sovereign  Pontiff 
would  be  a  fatuity  from  which  even  the  most  confirmed  her- 
aldic "  fancy  ritualist "  would  shrink.  We  have,  then,  a  series 
of  authoritative  original  sources  the  testimony  of  which  can- 
not be  impugned;  and  I  shall  draw  freely  from  the  great  (and 
costly)  work  on  the  Vatican  numismatic  collection  published 
at  the  command  of  Pius  X.® 

First  as  to  the  papal  shield.  Vulson  de  la  Columbiere,  writ- 
ing in  1644,  gives  the  papal  arms  on  an  oval  cartouche.  His 
chief  book,  one  of  the  most  beautifully  printed  French  works 
on  heraldry  in  the  seventeenth  century,  had  an  enormous 
vogue — and  for  nearly  three  hundred  years  most  subsequent 
French  writers  have,  parrot-like,  repeated  this  oval,  some  even 
giving  a  symbolical  reason  why  the  Popes  do  not  use  a  shield. 
A  recent  writer,  an  ecclesiastic,  states  with  confusing  brevity : 
"  The  Pope's  escutcheon  or  shield  is  oval  in  shape  ".  As  a 
matter  of  fact  the  Pope's  escutcheon  or  shield  is  nothing  of 
the  sort.  The  Pope's  shield  is  a  shield  and  his  oval  cartouche 
(on  which  his  arms  often  but  not  at  all  necessarily  appear)  is 
an  oval.  The  point  involved  is,  fundamentally,  not  in  the  least 
an  heraldic  one,  but  one  of  architectural  or  decorative  style. 
We  owe  to  the  Italian  Renaissance,  and,  chiefly,  to  Bramante, 
the  introduction  of  the  architectural  "  cartouche "  in  papal 
heraldry.  Before  then,  as  any  student  of  Gothic  architecture 
knows,  heraldry  as  a  decorative  adjunct  of  architecture  was 
treated  with  a  simple,  effective  realism :  the  stone  was  carved 
and  painted  as  if  an  actual  tourney  shield  was  hung  up,  with- 
out additional  framing  or  embellishment  other  than,  at  times, 

^  Le  Monete  e  le  Bolle  Plumbee  Pontificie  del  Medagliere  Vaticano,  da 
Camillo  Serafini.     Milano.     Vol.  I,  1910;  Vol.  II,  1912;  Vol.  Ill,  1913. 


THE  ARMS  OF  BENEDICT  XV. 


15 


its  own  proper,  heraldic  "  external  ornaments  "  of  mantling, 
etc.  The  angles  of  the  shield  lent  themselves  perfectly  to  the 
style  of  architecture  of  which  they  became  a  part.  With  the 
Renaissance,  I^owever,  it  became  obvious  to  architects  and  dec- 
orators that  the  severely  simple  forms  of  actual  shields  did  not 
always  lend  themselves  harmoniously  to  this  new  style.  The 
shields  were  therefore  modified  and  brought  into  harmony 
with  the  other  architectural  details;  often  the  shields  were 
frankly  abandoned  and  the  heraldic  figures  were  placed  imme- 
diately upon  a  decorative  panel,  scroll,  cartouche — whatever 
seemed  most  effective.  The  ovoid  cartouche  lent  itself  per- 
fectly to  Bramante's  style;  and,  of  course,  the  general  decor- 
ative character  of  the  two  most  important  papal  structures  in 
Rome,  St.  Peter's  and  the  Vatican,  was  fixed  for  all  time  by 
this  genius.  Now  right  here  must  be  sharply  drawn  the  dis- 
tinction between  heraldry  qua  heraldry,  and  heraldry  as  a 
decorative  adjunct  to  architecture.  When  heraldry  is  involved 
simply  qua  heraldry,  that  is  when  there  is  no  question  of  con- 
forming for  the  sake  of  decorative  consistency  to  an  arbitrarily 
determined  "  style  ",  a  coat-of-arms  inevitably  presupposes  a 
shield,  whether  the  arms  are  those  of  the  Holy  Father  or  those 
of  his  humblest  armigerous  subject.  And  both  good  taste  and 
common  sense  dictate  that  the  shape  of  shield  to  be  employed 
shall  correspond  to  one  of  the  simple  forms  in  actual  use  when 
heraldry  was  a  practical  operative  matter,  and  not  an  affair 
of  closet  speculation  or  architectural  experiment.  When,  how- 
ever, the  problem  is  purely  one  of  decorative  consistency,  the 
craftsman  is  wholly  at  liberty  to  bring  his  shield  or  cartouche 
into  harmony  of  line  with  whatever  decorative  style  is  for  the 
time  being  paramount. 

It  is  therefore  due  merely  to  the  operation  of  ordinary  good 
taste  that  in  buildings  with  the  particular  architectural  char- 
acter of  St.  Peter's  and  the  Vatican  the  papal  arms  should  ap- 
pear in  decorative  forms  consistent  with  their  environment. 
It  is  also  perfectly  natural  that  in  the  engraved  headings  of 
briefs,  etc.,  issued  from  the  pontifical  palaces  and  offices,  the 
same  decorative  heraldic  style  should  persist.  But  it  is  a 
gross  error  for  architects  and  other  designers  (and  for  writers 
on  heraldry!)  to  feel,  because  the  only  example  of  the  current 
papal  arms  they  may  have  seen  approaches,  decoratively,  this 


i6 


THE  ARMS  OF  BENEDICT  XV. 


Renaissance,  "  Bramante  "  type  (as  does  the  heading  of  the 
"  Analecta "  in  The  Ecclesiastical  Review),  that  this 
form  is  the  only  proper  one  and  rigidly  prescribed.  Blindly 
to  follow  this  view  is  often  to  mar  otherwise  admirable  work. 
For  example,  on  one  of  the  fagades  of  the  beautiful  Gothic 


TYPES  OF  SHIELD  USED  BY  SEVERAL  MODERN  POPES. 


building  of  Boston  College,  designed  by  the  distinguished  ar- 
chitect Mr.  Charles  D.  Maginnis,  are  seven  coats-of-arms. 
Six  of  them  are  properly  on  Gothic  shields;  the  seventh,  the 
arms  of  Pius  X,  is,  improperly,  on  a  Renaissance  cartouche,  so 
cruelly  out  of  harmony  with  the  style  of  the  building  that  it 
sets  one's  teeth  on  edge.  The  architect  is  to  be  acquitted  of 
blame,  for  on  the  original  proposed  drawings  the  design  was  a 
correctly  consistent  one.  I  adduce  this  strikingly  unfortunate 
instance  merely  because  this  kind  of  error  will  constantly  be 


THE  ARMS  OF  BENEDICT  XV, 


17 


repeated  until  the  point  I  am  discussing  becomes  perfectly 
clear  to  the  clerical  mind. 

On  the  earliest  armorial  papal  coinage,  the  simple  Gothic 
shield  is  invariably  used  (of  the  shape  called  "  Irish  "  by  the 
same  recent  writer!).  Not  until  the  coins  of  Alexander  VI, 
who  commissioned  Bramante  to  paint  his  arms  over  the  Porta 
Santa  of  Saint  John  Lateran,  does  the  oval  cartouche  appear. 
And  on  some  of  his  coins  the  original  shield  is  retained. 
Julius  II's  coins  also  show  the  oval,  and  then  nothing  but 
shields  appear  until  the  coinage  of  Paul  III  who  uses  the  car- 
touche, but  only  on  his  minor  coins.  But  it  is  needless  to  run 
through  the  long  catalogue  in  detail.  From  it  anyone  not 
blind  can  see  that  the  papal  heraldry  has  constantly,  like 
every  other  heraldry,  involved  shield  forms.  For  the  sake 
of  the  doubting  I  have  carefully  redrawn  the  types  of  shields 
used  by  twelve  modern  popes :  ten  are  drawn  from  their  coin- 
age; that  of  Leo  XIII  is  copied  from  the  papal  arms  embroid- 
ered on  the  fanons  of  that  Pontiff's  Jubilee  tiara;  that  of 
Pius  X  is  from  the  arms  stamped  on  the  bindings  of  the  numis- 
matic volumes,  already  cited,  published  by  His  late  Holiness' 
command.  Each  shield,  of  course,  was  accompanied  by  the 
tiara  and  keys,  but  these  are  omitted  from  considerations  of 
space.  From  these  shields  any  student  of  "  styles  "  can  see 
how  even  the  papal  arms  have  been  affected  by  successive 
decorative  fashions.  In  the  shield  of  Benedict  XIV  he  will 
recognize  the  gay,  fantastic  style  known  as  "  rococo "  or 
"  Louis  Quinze  ",  in  that  of  Pius  VII  an  echo  of  the  pseudo- 
classical,  so-called  "  Adam  "  style  of  the  last  quarter  of  the 
eighteenth  century  (called  by  the  before-mentioned  writer  the 
"  Swiss  and  American  "  form  of  shield!),  etc.,  etc.  Some  day, 
perhaps,  but  at  the  cost  of  wearisome  iteration,  we  may  get  rid 
of  the  heresy  that  the  Pope's  "shield"  is  necessarily  an  "oval". 

Like  the  papal  shield,  the  tiara  has  also  given  our  heraldic 
"  fancy  ritualists  "  much  material  for  ingenious  speculation 
and  assertion.  One  is  perhaps  as  good  as  another  for  a  text. 
Let  me  translate  from  the  Baron  du  Roure  de  Paulin.^"  "Chan- 
celier  de  la  Convention  Internationale  d'Heraldique "  (no 
corporate  name  is  too  magnificent  for  these  societies  of  ama- 

1*'  L' H eraldique  Ecclesiastique,  par  le   Baron   du   Roure   de   Paulin.     Paris, 
1911.     P.   II. 


1 8  THE  ARMS  OF  BENEDICT  XV. 

teurs  to  assume!).  Speaking  of  the  crowns  of  the  pontifical 
tiara  he  says:  "  The  fleurons  have  nearly  the  form  of  those  of 
ducal  coronets :  one  must  take  great  care  not  to  give  them  the 
appearance  of  fleurs-de-lis,  as  many  French  artists  generally 
do."  Here  again  the  testimony  of  the  papal  coinage  is  useful. 
While  it  is  true  that  on  a  majority  of  the  coins  the  fleurons 
of  the  tiara  are  of  the  conventional  form  resembling  the  so- 
called  "  strawberry-leaf  "  of  ducal  coronets,  yet  coins  of  Six- 
tus  IV,  Clement  VII,  Alexander  VII,  Clement  IX,  Clement  X, 
and  others,  show  fleurons  that  an  heraldic  numismatist  would 
unhesitatingly  call  fleurs-de-lis.  However,  I  myself  have  not 
taken  "  great  care  "  to  avoid  this  form  in  my  own  drawing  of 
the  tiara,  for  the  simple  reason  that  in  it  I  have  closely  fol- 
lowed not  heraldic  drawings  but  a  photograph  in  my  collec- 
tion of  the  actual  Jubilee  tiara  of  Leo  XIII,  on  which  the 
"  fleurons  "  are  fleurs-de-lis !  The  truth  of  the  matter  is  that 
on  this  point,  as  on  others,  a  certain  amount  of  freedom  has 
always  been  exercised.  The  crowns  on  one  or  two  papal 
tiaras  of  the  coinage  show  merely  the  old  plainly-pointed  coro- 
nets known  to  heralds  as  the  "  antique  crown  ",  a  form  still 
borne  by  many  of  the  Roman  princes.  A  designer  to-day  may 
fairly  legitimately  use  whichever  of  these  three  cited  shapes 
he  pleases,  although  the  last-named  may  well  be  abandoned  as 
too  exceptional.  My  only  point  is  to  indicate  the  decorative 
flexibility  of  these  papal  armorials — and  the  folly  of  general- 
izing, as  do  many  of  these  writers,  on  insufficient  data. 

Again,  however  we  may  explain,  archeologically,  the 
origin  of  the  tiara  or,  liturgically,  its  significance,  we  need 
not,  as  students  of  heraldry,  pay  undue  attention  to  somewhat 
confusing  statements  like  the  following:  "The  three  crowns, 
by  heraldic  tradition,  and  as  can  be  seen  [italics  mine]  on  the 
tiara  of  the  Pontifical  Jubilee  of  Leo  XIII,  1902,  are  of  three 
diff"erent  orders :  the  larger  and  lower  one  is  a  royal  crown  of 
fleurs-de-lis,  the  middle  is  a  princely  or  ducal  coronet,  and 
the  upper  a  count's  coronet."  Now  the  ornaments  surrounding 
the  rim  of  a  ducal  coronet  are  usually  "  strawberry-leaf " 
fleurons  and  those  on  the  majority  of  counts'  coronets  large 
pearls.  If  the  statement  of  my  clerical  friend,  whom  I  am 
once  more  quoting,  means  that  the  three  crowns  are  of  diflFer- 
ent  "  orders  "  in  the  architectural  sense  of  (visible)  "  forms  ", 


THE  ARMS  OF  BENEDICT  XV. 


19 


we  have  obviously  been  studying  different  tiaras  of  Leo  XIII, 
and  my  friend's  singular  example  is  unknown  to  me.  The 
confusion  is  probably  one  of  language  (my  friend  being  a 
Swiss)  ;  for  on  every  official  version  of  the  tiara  which  I  have 
seen,  actual  or  represented,  the  three  crowns  have  been  sub- 
stantially uniform  in  design.  So,  also,  different  heraldists 
will  give  you  different  directions  for  the  colors  and  ornaments 
of  the  tiara  :  it  is  at  times  of  white  stuff,  or  of  silver,  or  of  gold, 
with  gold  and  jeweled  crowns;  it  is  lined  with  white — it  is 
lined  with  red ;  the  f anons  are  of  white  silk,  of  blue,  of  silver, 
etc.,  marked  with  from  two  to  half  a  dozen  black  crosses. 
(The  fanons  of  Leo  XII I's  tiara  are,  as  before  mentioned,  sim- 
ply embroidered  with  his  arms.)  Well,  whatever  kind  of  tiara 
the  liturgist,  on  the  one  hand,  or  the  heraldic  "  fancy  ritual- 
ist ",  on  the  other,  may  construct,  the  conscientious  heraldic 
craftsman  may  comfortably  go  ahead  and  within  reasonable 
limits  suit  his  own  fancy.  The  tiara  on  Pope  Benedict's  letter 
heading,  from  which  I  have  derived  His  Holiness's  armorial 
bearings,  is  wholly  of  gold  with  silver  fanons ;  as  for  the  black 
crosses,  we  may  safely  put  them  aside  for  use  on  the  archi- 
episcopal  pallium. 

Finally,  as  to  the  keys.  Here  our  "  fancy  ritualists  "  break 
loose  with  a  vengeance,  but  I  will  spare  the  reader  the  amaz- 
ing intricacies  of  the  minutiae  they  insist  upon.  Vulson  de  la 
Columbiere  was  content  to  state  that  both  keys  are  of  gold.  I 
am  content  to  state  that  on  the  Holy  Father's  letter  heading 
both  keys  are  of  gold.  But  in  between  is  a  vast  array  of  her- 
aldists insisting  that  one  key  must  be  of  silver,  and  giving  an 
astonishing  number  of  reasons  why.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  on 
many  Roman  monuments  one  of  the  keys  is  shown  as  silver, 
but  one  will  find  perhaps  an  equal  number  on  which  both  keys 
are  gold.  Here,  again,  is  a  reasonable  freedom.  For  my  own 
part,  I  cannot  see  why  these  heraldic  sentimentalists  do  not  go 
to  the  logical  extreme  of  their  fancy,  and  make  one  key  of 
iron  or  some  even  "  baser  "  metal.  But  as  a  certain  number 
of  the  Sovereign  Pontiffs  have  been  satisfied  with  the  mere 
symbolism  of  two  keys,  tout  court,  irrespective  of  their  tinc- 
tures, it  would  seem  a  matter  of  supererogation  to  insist  on 
being  "  more  Catholic  than  the  Pope  "  in  this  respect.  So,  too, 
"  the  wards  must  always  open  in  crosses  " :  but  the  wards  on 


20  THE  ARMS  OF  BENEDICT  XV. 

many  papal  coins  do  not — it  is  enough  that  the  keys  are  keys. 
Still,  the  symbolism  of  this  point  is  so  natural,  and  is  found 
on  so  many  examples  of  papal  armorials,  that  it  may  well  be 
carefully  retained.  Again,  the  keys  "  must "  be  tied  together 
with  a  cord  ending  in  tassels,  of  red — of  gold — with  some  few 
authors,  of  blue.  But  the  papal  arms  are  often  officially  dis- 
played without  this  cord  (there  are  many  examples  in  the 
coinage).  Once  more  we  are  permitted  a  reasonable  freedom; 
on  some  styles  of  design  the  cord  is  a  very  graceful  addition, 
on  others  it  would  not  be.  The  cords  on  the  Holy  Father's 
letter  head  are  of  gold.  The  position  of  the  keys  excites  some 
writers  who  declare  that  they  must  always  appear  wholly 
above  the  shield,  between  it  and  the  tiara;  others  permit  the 
shafts  of  the  keys  to  desdend  behind  the  shield,  the  handles 
appearing  half-way  down.  Here,  once  more  some  defi- 
nite, recondite  "  symbolism "  is  involved.  M.  du  Roure 
de  Paulin  on  this  point  is  very  positive :  to  cross  them 
their  full  length  behind  the  shield — with  the  handles  on 
the  base  line — is,  he  declares,  a  gross  error — "  une  faute 
lourde  ".^^  I  have  not  the  temerity,  however,  to  convict  Pius 
VII,  for  example,  of  "gross  error".  In  the  illustration  of 
one  of  his  coins  you  will  see  how  that  Pontiff  has  permitted 
his  arms  to  be  displayed  in  a  manner  that  would  shock  the 
good  "  Chancellor  of  the  International  Heraldic  Convention  ". 
With  this  I  shall  rest  my  case. 

From  the  foregoing  discussion  of  papal  blazons  and  the 
varying  forms  of  the  papal  heraldic  external  ornaments,  I 
have  tried  to  show,  first,  how  simple,  rational,  and  clear  have 
been  the  armorials  of  the  Sovereign  Pontiffs  from  Lucius  II 
to  His  Holiness  Pope  Benedict  XV — how  free  in  their 
"charges"  from  the  sentimentalities  of  the  imaginative  as  op- 
posed to  the  scientific  students  of  heraldry.  Secondly,  how 
flexible  has  been  the  artistic  rendering  of  these  armorials,  the 
Pontiffs  permitting,  within  a  definite  range,  the  artistic  temper 
of  each  age  to  express  itself  naturally  in  the  decorative  forms 
of  their  own  armorials,  serenely  unhampered  by  the  sciolistic 
"  rules "  with  which  self-constituted  "  authorities "  have 
sought  to  restrict  the  practice  of  even  papal  heraldry. 

^1  Op.  cit,  p.   12. 


THE  ARMS  OF  BENEDICT  XV.  2 1 

The  twelve  coins  in  my  illustration  I  have  chosen  either  for 
their  beauty,  for  their  heraldic  interest,  or  because  they  illus- 
trate some  point  which  I  have  endeavored  to  make  clear  in 
the  foregoing  discussion.  They  should  be  of  high  value  to 
architects  and  other  designers,  as  they  express  a  variety  of 
decorative  styles  and  fall  within  a  wide  range  of  dates,  as 
follows:  I.  Benedict  XIV,  1740-58,  full  rococo:  note  the  ab- 
sence of  key-strings;  2.  Clement  X,  1670-76;  3.  Sixtus  IV: 
note  the  position  of  the  keys;  4.  Pius  VII,  1800-23  5  5-  Leo  X, 
1513-22  :  note  the  lion-heads  as  handles  of  the  keys;  6.  Inno- 
cent X:  note  the  Guelphic  "chief"  of  fleurs-de-lis;  7.  Inno- 
cent XI,  1676-89:  note  "the  chief  of  the  Empire",  and  the 
very  graceful  arrangement  of  the  key-strings ;  8.  Alexander 
VII,  1655-67;  9.  another  coin  of  Leo  X:  note  the  lions,  a 
unique  instance  of  supporters  on  the  coinage;  10.  Innocent 
XII,  1691-1700;  II.  Martin  V,  141 7-31  :  note  the  size  of  the 
tiara  and  its  fleur-de-lis  crowns;  12.  Clement  XI,  1700-21. 

In  conclusion,  I  would  point  out  the  fact,  for  the  benefit  of 
a  few  of  our  Ordinaries  who  have  undoubtedly  been  misled 
by  untrained  amateur  heralds,  that  a  representation  of  our 
Saviour,  of  Our  Lady,  or  of  any  Sainted  Person,  has  never 
appeared  on  a  papal  coat-of-arms.  Reverentiae  causa,  one 
would  never  appear  on  an  episcopal  shield,  if  the  true  nature 
of  heraldry  were  more  generally  apprehended. 

Pierre  de  Chaignon  la  Rose. 

Cambridge,  Mass. 


14  DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 

LOAN  DEPT. 

This  book  is  due  on  the  last  date  stamped  below,  or 

on  the  date  to  which  renewed. 

Repewed  books  are  subject  to  immediate  recall. 

^H     '       15Jan'65BEX 

1         REC-D  l_0 

^    JflN20'65-9AM 

J 

il 

fl 

'1 

1 

J 

1 

1 

^ 

«                LD  21A-60m-4,'64 
M                 (E4555s10)476B 

General  Library 

University  of  California 

Berkeley 

U.C.  BERKELEY  LIBRARIES 


CDDbSDSMDM 


